The Heart Collector (Under Editing)

Chapter Twenty-Six: Archive

Fare had reentered the apartment with two water bottles in hand. The furniture in the living room was pushed aside, and papers and photos littered the carpet. Novus sat on the floor looking them over.

"Here." Fare handed him a bottle of water.

Novus unscrewed the cap and took several big gulps. Once he was done, he started to pick up some of the papers that were the closest to him.

"Have you found anything yet?" She asked.

"Nothing that's screaming out at me. It's still just as confusing as before."

Fare watched him as he started reading. She knew that he said that he wanted to help her find Kila's killer, but she could not help but wonder if his pride was wounded. He was assigned a case that was originally one of his superior's and said superior openly admitted that he may not be fully loyal to the Fae Council.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Fare."

She did not believe him, but she did not push further. Instead she took note of how he furrowed his brows at a photo he picked up.

"Did you find something?"

"I think I know where we should look next."

"Really?" Fare said disbelievingly.

"I think we should go to Trial Houses' archive. You see this picture." He showed me the article on the Fae Council's new policy on old executions, "This picture is of the archives."

She looked at the photo, "Okay?"

"Fare, they just passed a law on sealing ALL of the execution files. All meaning both past and present. Why would they take a picture of the new archive building and not the old?"

A lightbulb went off in the back of her skull, "That's why she took that picture."

"What picture?" He asked while Fare was ruffled through the pile.

"This picture." She handed it to him along with another piece of paper, "This is the old archive, right? It was attached to this article. It looks like that Kila annotated it. There is a series of numbers on the bottom that I don't understand though."

He nodded then noticed something on the bottom of the picture, "Fare, Kila took this was taken the day she died. In fact, the time stamp is almost an hour before she died."

A chill ran up my spine, "So, this was one of the last things that she saw."

"Yes. This also confirms a suspicion that I had when I discovered that Crow originally oversaw the case."

"And that would be?"

"Crow didn't want anyone in the Truth-Falls to see your sister's research. That's why no one searched her filing cabinets. Let alone her apartment. He either told them that it wasn't worth searching or that everyone in his squad are in on it. Either way, Crow told me that they deemed her apartment not relevant, and I believed him."

"That's not all."

"What do you mean?"

"You said it yourself. This photo was time-stamped an hour before her death. How did it get here then?"

"That's a good point. Maybe we'll find the answer at the archive." He grabbed the photo from Fare and stood up, "Let's go." 

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When they reached the old Trial Houses' archive building, they were greeted with a sight they were not expecting to see. There, on the solid mahogany double doors, was a form plastered on it stating that the building was structurally unstable and could come down any day now. The look on Novus' face stated that that a new development.

"This doesn't make sense. I was just here last week. I dropped off-." He trailed off.

He startled Fare when he suddenly punched the brick wall, cracking the mortar. This was the first time that she had seen him lash out. He had always been cool and collected.

"I'm such an idiot. How didn't I see any of this?"

"What do you mean? What did you drop off?"

He rubbed his knuckles where a slight bruise was beginning to form, "I was asked to help bring files on some cold cases here for storage. I was told that the Thirteenth Division needed to make more space, so they gathered up some files that were marked 'unsolved'."

Fare watched him a little warily. She wanted to say something to him, but what could she say that had been already said? She reached over to open the doors and found them to be locked. She was not surprised, but then she realized that if this building was labeled structurally unstable, then why would someone bother to lock the door. Fare reached into her pocket and pulled out the lock-picking-kit. Novus was so lost in berating himself, he did not comment on her picking the door open. She reached for the first light switch to test an idea that she had. Just as she thought, the lights had not turned on. If this building was still functional like they thought, then someone was going through a lot of trouble to make it look as if it were abandoned. The tables and the lamps were covered in sheets, and the banister for the grand staircase that led to the first floor of books was covered in dust. There was no way that this amount of dust could have accumulated in such a brief period.

She pulled out my phone and activated the flashlight feature then turned to Novus, "Where should we start?"

After a few moments of debate, they decided to pull out the article that led us here. Kila's handwriting annotated it extensively, but it was the number scribbled and circled on the bottom that caught their eye: 93 9 00213 7. Novus believed that it corresponded to a case file. The 93 indicated that it was a case that occurred in 1993. The 9 meant that it was a judgement file and the 213 means that it was the two hundred and thirteenth case filed in that year. That was how they ended up in the basement; looking at the semi-chronological shelves. Whomever oversaw the organization down there was a fan of organized chaos. It took them a good twenty minutes to locate the correct shelf, but it took them less then a minute to notice that the file was not there.

"Maybe it got misplaced." Novus pulled out his phone to give a separate illumination and started looking through the other shelves.

Fare just stood there and stared at the empty spot. It was clear by the dust that something was moved from there recently. She had the feeling that if this was the last place Kila visited, there was a good chance that she found the file but couldn't leave with it. If she suspected that she was being followed, she would not have risked someone taking the file off her person. So, she would have hidden it in the hopes of coming back for it. Fare realized that her last conversation with her finally fit into the puzzle. After all, she asked for advice on hiding a legal file. That conversation must have been one of the first times Kila came here. Fare shone the light across the nearby shelves in the hopes to find more disturbed dust.

"Novus!"

She heard the running of foot steps as his light came back around the corner.

"Did you find it?"

"No but look at these nearby shelves. See if you find a file in a relatively clean spot."

He started to do so, "What are you thinking?"

"I think Kila switched the contents out with another."

"Why do you think that?"

My fingers danced across the bottom of the spines, "Because its what I would do."

As she worked her way down the shelves as Novus went the other way, she spotted something under the shelving completely. It was the tip of a blue ribbon. If it was what she thought it was, then Kila was here and had not come back.

"Novus! I got it!"